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Media Release

Güralp, the leading global provider of force feedback seismic monitoring instrumentation is launching a new low power, high fidelity, integrated digitiser and communications unit called Affinity; and Fortis, a strong motion accelerometer that has been designed to deliver ‘best in class’ performance.

The Affinity’s key features include full 24-bit resolution; an exceptionally low noise floor of >138 dB at 100sps; and sampling rates of up to 4000 samples per second.

For the first time with Affinity, Güralp will allow users access to the software environment to customise data reading, writing and signal processing. By opening the source of internal data handling and processing software, users will be able to expand the versatility of the Affinity for applications such as earthquake early warning; data triggers over low bandwidth; and applications’ proprietary data transfer protocols.

Philip Hill, Engineering Director at Güralp explains:

“When we made the decision to open up aspects of the Affinity software we did so largely in response to customer demand. The Affinity is a high performance piece of kit well suited to complex network arrangements and is built on open source Linux. Extending this open concept to include our data handling and control interface software allows users to incorporate functionality traditionally only possible with external hardware and software. The open source concept seems to be the ultimate way in which to respond to our customer's requirements.”

The Affinity also features a fast, fully interactive user interface with state of the art timing protocols and a switchable gain to enable a wide variety of different instruments, from the simplest of geophones, to infrasound sensors and, of course, seismometers.

The Fortis is a low-power (1.3 Watt), slim-line design, just 125 mm in diameter and 99 mm high with its optional feet. The Fortis incorporates state of the art switched gain levels that will allow the instrument to perform optimally in a wide range of earthquake, structural health and civil engineering applications.

The unparalleled low noise of the instrument finally allows the gap between traditional strong motion instrumentation and the weak motion seismometer to be bridged. The instrument naturally benefits from both flat frequency response as well as controlled and flat phase response over the passband. This is a pre-requisite for accurate picking and stacking algorithms to function optimally.

For further details of both of these new products, AGU registrants can visit Güralp at stand 344.

In their first year of taking part, Güralp employees have succeeded in raising more than £1000 in aid of Children in Need, a UK based charity that aims to change the lives of disabled children and young people in the UK.

Fundraising activities included a range of fun and amusing antics so that everyone could get involved. Fancy dress was the order of the day, in return for donations to the

cause. To boost the pot, some mad volunteers agreed to be locked in the stocks to face a barrage of water soaked sponges in return for sponsorship, it may come as no surprise that Neil Watkiss took the prize for the longest time in the stocks. Other activities included cake baking, face painting and a dry cracker eating competition.

Preparations and ideas for 2016 are already under way. Well done team Güralp!

The picture shows Neil Watkiss in the water stocks (top) and some of our production team showing off their fancy dress.

Güralp Systems are pleased to announce the expansion of our distribution network with the addition of World Tech Enterprise Ltd for the territory of the Kingdom of Thailand. World Tech Enterprise, an established provider of technological solutions in the Chemical and Life Sciences Market in Thailand, will promote the full Güralp Systems product range alongside their existing portfolio of products in related markets.

Mr Sonti Dumrongsilp, Managing Director of World Tech Ltd commented “We made the decision to broaden our product range to include the Güralp Systems solutions because we always aim to serve the best solutions for our customers and we are keen to help them address the seismological problems in Thailand.”

Chris Potts, Executive Chairman of Güralp Systems Ltd commented: “We are delighted to welcome the World Tech team on board and look forward to working with them to broaden our customer base and deliver world class seismic solutions in Thailand.”

Today, Güralp Systems announced the successful deployment of an array of ocean-bottom nodes as part of a 3D active marine seismic survey off the coast of Australia. The nodes have extended the aperture of the streamer survey from eight to thirty kilometres.

Güralp, in conjunction with their Australian representatives at the Seismology Research Centre, have recently supplied an array of twenty ocean-bottom seismic nodes to the Australian Geophysical Observing System (AGOS). Following a test in shallow water, the nodes were deployed for one week over an oil field on the North West Australian margin in a water depth of 1100 metres, within the area of a 3D marine seismic survey. Seismic signals from the survey were recorded to offsets in excess of thirty kilometres and could have been recorded to even larger offsets, had the acquisition geometry allowed larger separations between sources and receivers.

Alexey Goncharov at Geoscience Australia commented, “This is a major extension of the recording aperture compared to eight-kilometre long streamers used on that survey”. The large offset data obtained can be used for:

The Güralp nodes acquire three-component broadband seismic data from 0.03 Hertz to 100 Hertz and can operate for up to twelve months in water depths up to 6000 metres. The nodes were easily deployed using the 21 metre vessel Capricorn Lady, equipped with an A-frame at the stern. The nodes sink to the ocean floor and start recording automatically. Their deployed location is determined using an acoustic positioning system. On completion of the survey, the nodes are commanded to return to the surface using an acoustic communication link on the vessel. Once at the surface, the nodes broadcast their position over radio to facilitate recovery.

Mark Volanthen, Managing Director of Güralp Oil & Gas, stated “I am delighted that AGOS chose to work with Güralp on this project. This is the first time Güralp nodes have been used to provide additional data to streamer surveys. Our nodes are more frequently used for applications including surveillance of underground gas storage facilities, monitoring natural fractures in the overburden around oil and gas fields and life-of-field monitoring of oil and gas reservoirs to maximise hydrocarbon recovery”. Güralp sells and rents arrays of ocean-bottom seismometers for both permanent, real-time, cabled installations and temporary, free-fall or ROV-installed applications.

A video clip of the shallow water test deployment and recovery can be seen below: